How newborns solve problems, use moral reasoning and amaze scientists

Newborn Nela listens to music with headphones at the Saca hospital in Kosice, Slovakia, Tuesday, May 10, 2011. The hospital uses music therapy to help newborn babies that have to be separated from theirs moms for treatment. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Human infants are proving to have abilities far beyond what researchers have long assumed. Newborns grasp abstract numbers well enough to link matching numbers of objects and sounds, they understand musical rhythm well enough to detect a missed downbeat in a percussion line, and they consistently apply moral judgment.

As early as 3 months, newborns show a preference for puppets or animated characters that help others over those that hinder.

"They are the most powerful learners in the universe," Laura Schulz, a professor in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told The Oregonian last year during the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Portland.

Schulz and MIT graduate student Hyowon Gweon presented a study in which 16-month-olds quickly and accurately deduced whether a toy that failed to make music needed to be replaced or that they needed to ask for help because they did something wrong. Their study made it into the journal Science today.

Efforts to better understand the infant brain have important practical applications for helping children facing development hurdles, such as autism.

Within three months of birth, babies show a strong preference for eye contact. They spend more time looking at eyes than any other part of a person's face or body. But in children with autism, this behavior falters early and seems to contribute to the difficulties they have relating to others. Researchers at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., used eye-tracking equipment to compare viewing preferences of 15 2-year-olds with autism spectrum disorders and 36 typically developing toddlers. Both groups watched videos with actresses engaging them in games like pat-a-cake.

Toddlers with autism gave scant attention to eyes and spent more time focusing on mouths. The researchers found a strong correlation between eye contact and autism severity: The lower the level of eye fixation, the greater the child's social impairment in everyday life. With less experience observing and reacting to the eyes of others, the researchers said in a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry, children lose the chance to develop expertise in social cues, and in years of development, this could intensify the socially crippling effects of autism.

Other researchers have shown how television programming aimed at babies less than 2 years old may undermine rather than promote early brain development.

In one recent study, having a television within ear shot was enough to significantly reduce an infant's exposure to the spoken words of parents and other adults, and to reduce an infant's vocalizations and verbal exchanges. Hundreds of babies wore digital recorders that logged everything they heard or said on random days over several months in their homes. Researchers at Seattle Children's Hospital analyzed the recordings using speech-recognition software capable of distinguishing and counting words spoken by babies and adults in the presence or absence of television noise. Parents uttered about 770 fewer words around their babies for each additional hour of audible television. Babies, in turn, engaged in fewer vocal exchanges.

"A major goal of brain research is to find out how to build a strong, healthy brain architecture, one that will give children a strong foundation for future growth and development," says Helen Neville, a University of Oregon psychology and neuroscience professor, in a movie produced by UO's Brain Development Lab. The documentary, aimed at parents and parents-to-be, explores brain development from birth through adolescence. The program includes practical advice to parents, teachers and political leaders about ways to improve home and school environments to maximize the potential of young minds. A free, streaming version is available online.